Targeted advertising is growing in popularity because it works.
Targeted advertising general involves an attempt to infer a characteristic of a potential consumer of an advertisement, followed by selection of an advertisement that addresses that characteristic. For example, search engine services such as the GOOGLE search engine service match ad-associated keywords with search terms entered by a user in selected ads to display to the user, under the assumption that the user is currently interested in items for which he or she is searching, and would thus be particularly receptive to an ad on the same topic. Such advertising selection can improve experiences for users in that they receive information that is deemed to be particularly useful to them.
Television advertising has generally been much less targeted. Rather, advertisers may have been able to access general demographic information about an audience for a program, the broadcast nature of television (and radio) has prevented more precise targeting (apart from selecting certain local markets in which to run ads). However, with the development of IPTV and other similar technologies, better targeting of commercials and other forms of television advertisements has become possible. In particular, on-line activity by a user may be analyzed, and commercials may be selected for broadcast to the particular user that match inferences about the user's wants and needs.
Such analysis of user actions may raise privacy concerns for some users, despite the fact that it is directed simply at providing them with more useful information that may benefit them greatly. That is because effective determinations of user wishes generally requires determinations over a period of time.